Renewables

German and Swedish researchers calculated the supply of materials to produce perovskite tandem PV at a multi-terawatt-scale, flagging the difficult supply of gold, indium and cesium, well as a need to streamline production of certain materials used for hole-transport layers. “In essence, we might be able to go post-fossil fuels, but we can’t go post-minerals,” the research’s corresponding author, Lukas Wagner, told pv magazine.

Singapore-based renewables developer Vena Energy has launched commercial operations of a 125 MW solar project in the Australian state of Queensland. It is backed by a long-term offtake agreement with global tech giant Amazon.

As the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) ramps up clean energy efforts across the United States, the government has outlined a plan to expand transmission lines to accommodate more power.

The Irish authorities have presented a new plan to allow homeowners to borrow between €5,000 ($5,350) and €75,000 for up to 10 years, with low interest rates. Heat pumps, solar electricity and solar water heater installations are all eligible under the scheme.

Greek renewables developer Elica SA is seeking consultants for two desktop studies related to an electrical interconnection project between Greece and Egypt. The undersea link will transmit green energy to Europe via a 3 GW HDVC connection.

An international research team has used the convolutional neural network (CNN) deep learning algorithm to identify faults in solar panels. Its work showed the proposed technique has a high degree of accuracy, especially if combined with transfer learning models.

An international research team has proposed using iron oxide and copper oxide to lower photovoltaic-thermal (PVT) solar module temperature. Their analysis showed that the two compounds were able to lower the panels’ operating temperature by 23.49% and 34.58% respectively.

Chemitek has developed new cleaning products for floating PV arrays. The Portuguese company says it has tested and confirmed them to be safe for animals and vegetation around such systems.

An African Development Bank (AfDB) report covering critical takeaways from the ARE Energy Access Investment Forum 2023 says that challenges in financing, policy, technology, and skills enhancement must be overcome to support the deployment of distributed renewable energy minigrids across Africa.

Baud Resources, a clean-tech startup, has developed a gravity energy storage mechanism that uses locally available materials such as sand and industrial waste as its payload. The company is building a 100 MWh pilot plant that will reportedly offer a levelized cost of storage of around INR 2.5 ($0.03)/kWh.